JUD JUD No Tolerance for Instruments (Scehmatics) 7" 3.99
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Once you realize this amazing single is totally acapella, the title finally makes sense! Jud Jud do stunningly perfect straight-edge punk/grindcore/emo -- except that every cymbal crash, every wail of guitar feedback, every single note is done acapella! Must be heard to be believed! This is their second single. Now if only they would do a covers album...

JURGENSEN, FRIEDRICH From The Studio For Audioscopic Research (Ash International (R.I.P.)) cd 14.98
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Friedrich Jurgensen's efforts in what he deemed Audioscopic Research is compiled here as the exquisite follow-up to AQ's Halloween fave "The Ghost Orchid." Both are collections of (alleged) recordings of examples of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), which is a broad catagory of unusual interruptions by unknown voices onto magnetic tape or the radiowaves. Parapsychologists like Jurgensen, Raymond Cass, and Konstatine Raudive (the latter two were featured on the aforementioned "Ghost Orchid") claim that these voices may be from beyond the grave or may even have an extraterrestrial origin! While other researchers have devised intricate methods to focus these voices, Jurgensen claimed that his own telepathic tendencies could harness these voices, causing them to appear on radio or tape. All of Jurgensen's recordings feature voices speaking in German, Italian, Swedish, and (if that wasn't enough) polyglot--the intermingling of languages.
One of the criticisms of EVP investigation is that the listener/researcher may be forcing the syllabic utterances into the recognizable patterns of his/her own native tongue or within the confines of a narrative context. While no one is questioning the actual presence of these vocal sounds, the interpretations (of origin and/or translation) that accompany the recordings are far from solid. As I have no real working knowledge of any of the languages featured, an utterance from one of the tracks which was supposed to be in Italian or German came out as clear as day to me in English as "we have to leave." Does this debunk the possibility that these recordings are of alien/ghostly origins? No. Could it be an interesting anomaly within the context of analytical thought on the subject? Maybe. Could I be wrong? Quite possibly. Anyway, listened to purely as sound artifacts, Jurgensen's recordings are downright creepy, and highly recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Audioscopic01"
RealAudio clip: "Audioscopic09"
RealAudio clip: "Audioscopic22"

KAREL, ERNST Heard Laboratories (And/Oar) cd 14.98
The sound of science! This is not the fictionalized abstraction of synthesized tone and pulse that come across as sci-fi dramas in the works of folks like Oneohtrix Point Never or Klaus Schulze, instead field recordist Ernst Karel has ventured into the various laboratories at Harvard to capture the environmental sounds found within! To astrophysicists, chemists, and cognitive science researchers these are the quotidian noises of work; but beyond the walls of any given science institution, these clanks, hums, hisses, and groans can take on any number of allusions. Such a strategy is not uncommon, as John Duncan had the opportunity to capture the sounds of the Stanford Linear Accelerator for his potent powerdrone masterpiece The Crackling, and Francisco Lopez brought focused sensibility to his Machines. Karel's approach to his source material seems to be one of cautious awe and political neutrality. On the first track on Heard Laboratories, Karel captures the metronomic clicks from an organometallic chemistry process that results in atomic layer deposition. There is a rather clinical definition of what this process is, but no explanation as to what this could be used for or why. The various clicks emerge from a growing vortex of precision tuned motors and pressurized hiss, broken on one occasion by an incoming telephone call. Elsewhere, the sounds of sterlizers and centrifuges take on a particularly ominous set of rasped bursts of noise that bear a bone-chilling resemblance to a dental drill. Marathon Man, perhaps? The tiny bird-like squeaks from the tamarins being used for cognitive research infiltrates Karel's sound field, bracketed by massive vibrations from cooling systems used to protect much of the equipment. The clinical hiss of a canister of liquid nitrogen resonates with the cycling pulse of a lazer that it was intended to cool takes on an almost musical quality of chorale-like minimalism touched with slow crawling rhythmic swells. Karel offers a pretty amazing set of field recordings here, certainly recommended for anyone interested in the aforementioned John Duncan, Francisco Lopez, M. Behrens, Tarab, Eric La Casa, etc.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Five"

KAREL, ERNST Swiss Mountain Transport Systems (Gruenrekorder) cd 17.98
Ever been to the Alps? Well, even if you haven't, you can imagine that in a landscape of towering mountain peaks, tiny human beings might have to find some unusual ways to get around. Travel along the vertical, as well as horizontal, axis, is the necessary norm. The ground may be crazy steep, or far far below.
Field recordist Ernst Karel, whose Heard Laboratories cd documenting "the sound of science" we've previously recommended, visited Switzerland and produced this disc which will help you to imagine that lofty Alpine landscape, in a unique way, by presenting the sounds of the various modes of, indeed, Swiss mountain transport that he encountered - various suspended gondolas, an aerial tramway, a "transverse-seat chairlift" (the last one in Switzerland, now out of service, we're told), a helicopter, and a couple funicular cable cars (inclined trains, which are wonderful things, as depicted on the back cover of this release).
Of course, as a sonic experience only, this "documentation" is as (deliberately?) mysterious as it is enlightening. The mechanical clanking, the whirring, the wind, the murmurs of passengers... these ambient sounds sometimes quietly soothing, sometimes noisy, certainly curious. Makes for a nice companion to Chris Watson's El Tren Fantasma highlighted last list, for those into journeys through sound (of journeys) - though this one is raw audio verite, not a "fictionalized" construct like Watson's disc.
A few color photos are provided on the packaging, along with location, date, etc., specifics of the individual tracks (details for, ahem, trainspotters). Nicely done, from the same great field recordings label that last brought us the Water Beetles Of Pollardstown Fen (more of those soon on the way, btw!).
MPEG Stream: "Stans-Kalti"
MPEG Stream: "Scuol-Motta Naluns"
MPEG Stream: "Dallenwil-Wiesenberg"

KECAK GANDA SARI Kecak From Bali (Bridge) cd 15.98
We've had plenty of compilations that featured excerpts of Balinese Kecak performances, but never a recording of the complete Ramayana Monkey Chant, and it's pretty phenomenal! Recorded in 1987 by David Lewiston, who recorded most of the music featured on Nonesuch releases of Indonesian music, this release is not new but it's definitely a classic and totally worth checking out. An old fave indeed, Allan here first heard this 'round about the same time he first got into the Boredoms, and they're somehow linked in his mind, makes sense, 'cause we'd imagine Kecak like this could in fact have been an inspiration for some of the Boredoms' wilder stuff!
Those new to the sights and sounds of "Balinese Monkey Chants" might think that these performances and pieces are long passed on oral traditions and rituals from centuries ago, but in truth they are a modern cultural invention. They were created with the help of a Russian-born German artist named Walter Spies living in Bali between the World Wars, who was a strong advocate for the advancement of Balinese arts in order to appeal to the tourists who visited the island. Spies saw potential in the traditional Balinese trance rituals such as Sanghyang, a spirit communication usually during troubled times. One of the main features of these rituals was the Cak (pronounced chak) chorus, a group of males who chant in highly syncopated and precise rhythms. Spies thought that the Cak chorus would appeal to tourists if it could be made into an entertainment involving a story. So working with a Sanghyang group in the early nineteen thirties, they fashioned a drama from the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, a story well known to the Balinese people and to many of the foreigners who frequented the island. Using dancers and performers to act out the main parts of dramatic adventures of Prince Rama and his wife Sita, her abduction by the evil Rawana and her rescue with the help of Hanuman and the King of The Monkeys, the role of the Cak Chorus became greatly transformed by not only expanding their variety of sounds by exploring the Balinese language abundant use of onomatopoeia to mimic gamelan rhythms, but also by integrating themselves into the action through choreographed waves of dramatically intense synchronized movements. Sitting in a large group of 5-6 semi-circles, the male chorus use their arms in unison to great effect, sometimes waving up or to the sides or forward while at other moments of the drama, the chorus representing the advancing armies of Rawana, half of the group will stand and lurch forward to display aggression while the other half lies back in surrender (James Cameron borrowed heavily from this for the Na'vi rituals in Avatar). While it is amazing to watch, it's also quite incredible to listen to as the waves of chanting hover between chaos and control in precise furies of sound. You'll hear what we mean about maybe influencing the Boredoms... If you don't have any Kecak in your collection, you don't know what you're missing!
MPEG Stream: "Introduction"
MPEG Stream: "Sita's Abduction"
MPEG Stream: "Interlude"

KEITH, RODD Saucers In The Sky (Roaratorio) cd 14.98

KRAUSE, BERNIE Green Meadow Stream (Miramar) cd 14.98
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Unlike the Douglas Quin recording of Antarctica for Miramar, Bernie Krause's field recording "Green Meadow Stream" is a willfully self-evident production, documenting the chorus of chirping birds along a burbling brook in the distance. These recordings were made in the Lincoln meadow near Yuba Pass in the High Sierras, before that meadow was clear cut and yet to recover. Quite a nice recording.

KRAUSE, BERNIE Kalimantaan : Heaven Before Time (Miramar) cd 14.98
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For "Kalimantaan," it appears that Bernie Krause has added a bit of post-production to his field recordings made in Borneo (whose ancient name is the title of the disc), but there's nothing that detracts from the recordings natural beauty, just a touch of reverb and narratively minded editing. The first track is dedicated to the sounds at dawn, starting out with a haunting choral duet for Gibbons, before being quelled by a cloudburst to quiet the variety of insects and birds that form the white noise ambience of the rainforest. The second track focuses on the heat of the late afternoon with more monkeys (orangutans and proboscis monkeys) hooting behind the polyphony of tree frogs, before rain falls again on the forest. This is a truly magnificent field recording!

KRAUSE, BERNIE Notes From the Wild (Ellipsis Arts) book + cd 15.98
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Bernie Krause has had a broad ranging history in audio and music - having played with the folk group The Weavers as Seeger's replacement, studying music at Mills and collaborating with Paul Beaver in the sixties to produce several oscillator heavy electronic records. In the last 25 years, however, he's devoted his life to recording animals and insects around the world. This release represents a sort of best of collection of Krause's recordings, plus a very handsomely printed 95 page hard cover book - on recycled paper - of essays and journal writings by Krause.

KRAUSE, BERNIE Rainstorm In Borneo (Miramar) cd 14.98
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KRAUSE, BERNIE Zimbabwe : Gardens Of Eden (Miramar) cd 14.98
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Another well-rounded recording of pure natural sounds by Bernie Krause. This time he's attempted to track down the site of natural echo reflection where a troupe of baboons have situated themselves to bounce echoes of their barks off of a 300 foot granite sheer face. While's never actually found that specific site, Krause was able to get solid recordings of those baboons as well as the serene dawn chorus of the forests innumerable birds.

KUBISCH, CHRISTINA Five Electrical Walks (Important) cd 14.98

KUBISCH, CHRISTINA Night Flights (Important) cd 14.98

KUWAYAMA - KIJIMA 01.06.16 (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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A slight departure from the silence and drones that often-inaudible composer Bernhard Gunter's Trente Oiseaux label is known for, this disc by Japanese cello and violin duo Kuwayama Kiyoharu and Kijima Rina is a live acoustic improv set. Not exactly jazz improv, though! More of an avant-garde modern classical chamber improv thing, but minus the actual "chamber", 'cause the real twist is that "01.06.16" isn't just live, it's what you might term a "field recording" -- they recorded it outdoors, beside a highway at midnight! So you get the sound of passing cars and trucks, adding a whooshing, rumbling texture to the proceedings. We're not sure if they're really listening to the traffic and interactively improvising with those sounds -- although it seems that way at least some of the time -- but the ambient (and very present) pulsation of the highway noise makes a nice setting for the creaking, scrabbling, droning interplay of their strings. This type of thing is this duo's modus operandi, as we've also heard Mr. Kuwayama's and Ms. Kijima's previous, self-titled disc on GG Records which featured them improvising similarily in a warehouse and on the construction site of an expressway. Although we're still a bit surprised to find this on Trente Oiseaux -- being the label that released Reynols' "Blank Tapes", we'd have expected them to want even more highway and less violin and cello on this release...
RealAudio clip: "01.06.16 f"

LA CASA, ERIC Air Ratio (Sirr) cd 15.98
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MPEG Stream: "One"
RealAudio clip: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

LA CASA, ERIC Les Pierres du Seuil 4-7 (Edition ... ) cd 16.98
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Eric La Casa is a French sound artist primarily interested in curating unprocessed field recordings, which are usually of the most common natural element of minerals, wind, and water. With only the contextualizing resources of the recording level and the narrative position, La Casa masterfully reveals the volatile sonic properities of seemingly inert substances. If you're a fan of Chris Watson's incredible field recordings, you should certainly check this one out.

LAMB, ALAN Night Passage (Dorobo) cd 15.98
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LAMB, ALAN Night Passage & Demixed (Dorobo) 2cd 21.00
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Finally, we've managed to restock Alan Lamb's Night Passage, one of the most evocative and sonically engaging dronescaping records that has ever passed through these doors. This Australian composer's sole source material is the sound of wind blowing against telephone wires. In recording the raw material, Lamb simply attaches contact microphones to telephone poles, sits back, and lets the weather blow through the wires how it sees fit. The resultant drones are sublimely rich in their metallic timbres and amazingly complex reverberations, that is not all that far off from Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures. I (Jim) actually had a very hard time believing that they were what Lamb said they were: unprocessed wire music. That is until one cold, blustery summer afternoon on the craggy coastline near Point Reyes north of San Francisco, I heard those exact same sounds from the wind raking across the telephone wires that extended out to a distant lighthouse. These sounds were eeriely beautiful, yet unsettling as they vibrated the air with such ubiquity that their origin was impossible to pinpoint.
For Night Passage, Lamb's recordings originate with the Faraway Wind Organ, a half mile of abandoned telegraph wires in the outback of Western Australia. Unfortunately, this network of wires has collapsed due to lightning and termites, making Lamb's recordings a very rare documentation of an amazing naturally occuring sonic phenomenon.
Also included with this double disc package is the Demixed album, in which Thomas Koner, Lustmord, Ryoji Ikeda, and Bernhard Gunter were given Lamb's raw recordings to treat and compose with. Where Lamb's compositional sensibility privledges the intrinsic qualities of his recordings with just crossfades and equilization, these four blurred the source material that reflected their own signature sounds. Koner leans to expansive gaping drones; Lustmord collapses everything within a bleak catacomb of oppressive ambience; Ikeda ruptures the sound into a subtle piece of minimalism; and Gunter stretches the boundaries of perception. This is one of the best all around remix albums, completing what is otherwise an already impeccable document.
MPEG Stream: "Night Passage"
MPEG Stream: "Kyros (demixed by Thomas Koner)"
MPEG Stream: "Fragmented (demixed by Lustmord)"

LAMB, ALAN Primal Image / Beauty (Dorobo) cd 15.98
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Alan Lamb is a biologist who entered the realm of music after discovering the complex choral harmonics of the telephone wires that span his native Australia. Lamb's allegiance to both biology and the spectral sounds of the frequencies of a long thin wire reacting to natural events isn't that odd as Lamb himself explains, "that these principles (in wire frequencies) have much in common conceptually with those underlying the generation of coherent patterns in biological systems... and it is probably not too far fetched to suggest that wire music is an aural embodiment of some of the most fundamental dynamic laws of the universe."
"Primal Image / Beauty" is the culmination of 7 years of field recordings, during which Lamb discovered the best meterological situations for certain timbres, the best wires that emanated these harmonics, and good microphones to capture the sounds (for this phenomenon is externally ampified by the wires under the right circumstances). Even in listening to the incredible textural dronework from Organum or Xenakis, it is pretty awe-inspiring that this is simply the sound of the wind resonating a wire.
For those who live around the Bay Area, this phenomenon can be heard on occasion at Point Reyes, especially when the wind is coming straight down the coast from the north and strikes the wires which run east-west along the barren peninsula.
RealAudio clip: "Beauty"

LANGLEY SCHOOLS MUSIC PROJECT, THE Innocence and Despair (Bar None) cd 16.98
Rural Canadian schoolkids ages 9-12, sixty of 'em, singing pop hits like "Space Oddity", "Good Vibrations", "I'm Into Something Good", and "Band On The Run", backed by shimmering, gamelan like percussion and sparse rock instrumentation??
Yes! And of course it's Irwin Chusid (of "In The Key of Z" fame, a specialist in "outsider" music) who's responsible for getting these 1976-77 recordings finally issued on cd for our enjoyment. Apparently these kids had a somewhat unorthodox music teacher, who, tapping into his student's musical enthusiasm, arranged and captured this amateur outpouring of charmingly naive genius...lovely yet fucked up. And funny. Yet so heartfelt and innocent. Over the course of these nineteen earnest tracks, you'll either lose your mind or fall in love with the Langley Schools Music Project. Genius or not, certainly Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Bowie, the Bay City Rollers, Fleetwood Mac, the Carpenters, the Eagles, Barry Manilow, etc. never sounded so...odd. "Lo-fi Spectorian majesty" indeed. It's like an all-Shaggs orchestra playing AM radio covers. We have to agree with John Zorn's cover sticker blurb: "Touches the heart in a way no other music ever has, or could." So terrible, yet so brilliant. Never intended for release (it was originally pressed as a limited double 12" for the kids and their families) but now the 2-track tape reels have been remastered, and this cd, with a detailed 16-page booklet featuring super cute photos of the kids, has been unleashed on the world! Great Christmas gift material, if we may be so bold. The more we listen to this, the more amazed we are. Can't wait for a reunion tour! Summing it up, here's some words from the music teacher himself: "I knew virtually nothing about conventional music education, and didn't know how to teach singing. Above all, I knew nothing of what children's music was supposed to be. But the kids had a grasp of what they liked: emotion, drama, and making music as a group. Whether the results were good, bad, in tune or out was no big deal -- they had elan. This was not the way music was traditionally taught. But then I never liked conventional 'children's music,' which is condescending and ignores the reality of children's lives, which can be dark and scary. These children hated 'cute.' They cherished songs that evoked loneliness and sadness." --Hans Fenger, Langley music supervisor/arranger.
An ever enduring all time aQ favorite for sure!
RealAudio clip: "Space Oddity"
RealAudio clip: "Desperado"
RealAudio clip: "Rhiannon"

LAPLAND WALKS (JEROME CHEVEREAU, THIERRY GAULTIER, JEAN C. ROCHE) Lapland Walks (Balades En Laponie) (Sittelle) cd 17.98

LAWRENCE, TOM Water Beetles Of Pollardstown Fen (Gruenrekorder) cd 17.98
If you haven't already decided to buy this just 'cause of the title (which is indeed indicative of what this is - field recordings of water beetles!!!), we suppose we should provide something of a review. Though, if you're like us, there's not much more you need to know besides that it's WATER BEETLES - and a release on the great German sound-art label Gruenrekorder...
The liner notes in the cd booklet here begin with a very apt quote from composer David Dunn: "All of the sound we hear is only a fraction of all the vibrating going on in our universe". And while it's probably good that we can't hear it all, all the time (boy that would be noisy) it's also cool once in a while to experience some of the sounds that we're usually missing out on. In this case, a sonic glimpse of another, secret world, what it would sound like if you lived in a marsh, and got your ears up close underwater next to some talkative, chit-chattering insects... which, interestingly, is a lot like some stuff in our experimental/drone section. Turns out the water beetles of Pollardstown Fen make mesmeric mad-scientist "music" that would fit in with the clicks and cuts on Raster-Noton! Abstract, ambient, but not exactly beatless - there's rhythmic pulses to the seeming electronic transmissions from these beetles. From track to track it's quite varied, these tracks teeming with all manner of bleepings and burblings, chirpings and cracklings... constantly changing, constantly fascinating, the noises these waterbugs make with their microscopic mating "cries" is AMAZING. Buzzing drones, sferic-like swoops, sawing sounds, gurgling grind, morphing and modulating in pitch... And it's not just them, there's other sounds found in their aquatic environment - did you know that photosynthesizing plants made sounds?
The ten tracks here, all recorded at locations within the Pollardstown Fen, an ancient alkaline marsh in County Kildare, Ireland, might somehow suggest mechanical sources, but are all indeed natural and organic (the liner notes take pains to specifically state that there's no electrical interference to be heard here, nor were any mechanical devices in operation upon the Fen at the time of these recordings). And yes, though we are quite happy to let our imaginations make the most of these recordings without any further information, for the curious the cd booklet does contain detailed notes, getting all technical and scientific about both the recordings and the insects in question, which should convince any skeptics suspicious about the actual origin of these sounds! Let's quote an example here, the description of track ten, just to give you the full flavor of the text, and also some idea of what you're in for, when you listen:
"This recording is a protracted performance given by a single waterbug (Water Scorpion) in heightened antagonistic stance. The hydrophone has been positioned about one inch from the insect. The insect stridulated in this way for approximately nine hours. In the background the communicative songs of the wider ecosystem can be heard. Towards the end of the recording an interesting oscillation technique takes place."
On that track, they only let that antagonistic waterbug go on for just about 13 minutes, but the whole disc itself is well over an hour and always interesting, and for us ultimately meditative.
If you liked another recent waterbug cd we listed (yes, we've had more than one!), Thomas Tilly's hydrophonic field recordings from a castle moat in France, this is maybe even more "immersive" and pleasantly evocative of its watery natural world... Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Seven Springs"
MPEG Stream: "Moore's Well"
MPEG Stream: "Hawkfields"

LEONARD, CHERYL E. Chattermarks (All Ways North) cd 13.98
In January 2009, the Bay Area sound-artist and composer Cheryl Leonard embarked on a residency program at the Palmer Station in Antarctica. There, she took every opportunity to venture out into the summer's perpetual daylight to make as many field recordings as possible and to collect an array of penguin bones (with the permission of the Palmer Station, of course) to use in her rather elegant, beguiling compositions. In the past, Leonard had used a variety of branches, rocks, and other natural elements in these beautifully textured compositions whereby she would bow and clink those objects into masses of textures that came across somewhere between the work of Loren Chasse, Jeph Jerman, and Small Cruel Party. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that she actually released a split 7" with SMC's Key Ransome some 15 years ago.
While Chattermarks is a collection of pure field recordings, the use of those abraded sounds within a composed swarm points to what she was listening for in Antarctica. In hearing Leonard talk about her Antarctic adventure, she is quick to describe the brutality of the wind and the intensity of the cold, all of which wreaked havoc upon her binaural mics and hydraphones. Many of her recordings feature the noises of Antarctic animal life: adelie penguins, elephant seals, skuas, and gulls. The slumbering snore from a couple of the elephant seals is particularly striking as are their bellowing barks and guttural thrumbings. But the sounds of ice are probably the most intriguing recordings on Chattermarks, from the huge rumbles of a glacier that crumbles into the ocean with smaller tinklings of ice racing down an embankment to the searing hiss of millions of shards of ice clattering together next to a disintegrating wall of packed snow. The only document of the Antarctic wind was captured in a haunting recording of wind whipping around an antenna punctuated by the booms of a glacier splitting in two somewhere in the distance. An obvious treat for anyone keen on Douglas Quin's polar recordings, but Leonard has an excellent flair for subtle drama that's also heard in those impeccable Chris Watson field recordings. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Beach Adelie Penguins"
MPEG Stream: "Shore Brash Ice"
MPEG Stream: "Elephant Seal Nap"
MPEG Stream: "Storm At Gamage Point"

LIGHTNING BOLT s/t (Load) cd 12.98
Finally, the debut LP from Providence, RI's Lightning Bolt gets reissued! Now on cd for the first time, with over forty minutes of bonus live material! When this record first hit the streets a couple of years ago, people either instantly fell in love with or completely despised this band. With its shitty production (basically the equivalent of a dictaphone set on the floor right between the drums and monster bass cabinets), it's understandable that some wrote this off as some wanky noise-art-rock act. But for the few and proud that could withstand the muck, there lied a wonderfully hypnotic, repetitive machine, heavy as fuck and amazing, as it was only two boys, Brian Chippendale (drums, vocals) and Brian Gibson (bass). Only after witnessing the duo's incredible live performance did people start to understand the intensity and complexity inherent in Lightning Bolt. Listening to this document now isn't nearly as exciting as when it first surfaced, solely due to the fact that Brian and Brian have gone on to write more complex songs and produce more dense and dynamic recordings, not to mention the fact that their current live set is tighter, faster, louder and the crowd is way more crazy and out of control! But until the next record surfaces, this reissue will hold over fans, old and new, as there are previously unreleased live recordings aplenty. Fans of Ruins and Godheadsilo take note if you haven't already, though ultimately Lightning Bolt is a completely different beast altogether... Undoubtedly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Into The Valley"
RealAudio clip: "Fleeing The Valley Of Whirling Knives"

LINK, RAY / ALICE DUCHAMP Playaphone 1 (self-released) cd 9.98
We just couldn't pass this one up, and it's got us considering whether maybe we ought to start an "Intercepted Transmissions" section in our store (separate from the found sounds, et al). Let's see, we've got Petros Drecojecai (cordless phones), Today's Voices (cell phones) and to this end we might be able to squeeze the Conet Project and Kathy McGinty in for that matter. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. The Playaphone Project, as it's explained within the liner notes, was intended as an art installation of sorts and executed at the 1998 Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Several phones were set up around the Burning Man site. Each one was connected live to the other phones and as far as can be told, none of the participants knew one another, nor could they see one another from phone to phone. What do you get when you have a group of people running around the desert, high on hallucinogens and lord knows what else, and stick a phone in their hand with another random reveler? Well, let's just say we're not sure whether we're more surprised that there isn't much phone sex or more... The editors of this disc took the endless hours of phone conversations and culled them down to the hour or so included here (no editing of the actual conversations was done though) and produced their own rock soundtrack to accompany the results. Weird? Weird.
MPEG Stream: "Cold Robot"
MPEG Stream: "Marshall & MacLennon"

LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 5 (Reptilian) cd 11.98
You think by now we'd be sick of crank calls. And we sort of are, but as with any 'artform' there are always a select few who manage to take that 'artform' to another level. Thus we have the enigmatic Longmont Potion Castle. This master of deadpan confusional telephone terror. Mr. Longmont no longer practices his art, having hung up his phone (hee hee... sorry) several years ago. But the kind folks at Reptilian have unearthed "the last known recordings of phone fun made at the Longmont Potion Castle." And fun it is. The cool thing about LPC, is he's not an asshole, and he doesn't necessarily set out to piss people off, even though it's obviously inevitable. And when he does get in a tough guy "I'll kick your ass" sort of verbal sparring match, his choice of threats are so ridiculous and nonsensical, you find yourself almost embarassed for him, like the little tiny kid who is oblivious to his mortality and insists on standing up to the bully and always gets his ass whupped. The add in his obsession with squid meat and an amazing litany of bizarre items / objects / names / services he invokes or offers or pretends to be looking for: Spencer Zebra, Aqualamb, Chowder Julius, Wovenloaf, Frickey Weaver, Chimp Giraffe Loop (making me laugh just typing those!). Wow! It really is amazingly funny. And bizarre. If you've never heard longmont this is as good a place to start as any! Sad that it's the last time we'll hear that oh so familiar dedpan drawl looking for Spencer Zebra or threatening to bring various household objects "to ya lip."
MPEG Stream: "UPS Freakout 1"
MPEG Stream: "Spencer Zebra"
MPEG Stream: "Aqualamb"
MPEG Stream: "Loud Tones"

LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 7 (D.U.) cd-r 11.98
LONGMONT POTION CASTLE IS BACK!!! Longtime readers of the aQ list know how much we love this twisted master of the crank call. Maybe the only crank caller worth our continued attentions. Hilarious, tripped out, nonsensical, infuriating, straddling the line between totally genius and hilarious, and completely ridiculous and stupid. Confusing innocent victims, picking fights with some of them, befriending others, posing as the UPS man wanting to deliver some sod, or acting as a representative of City Search offering a service to reverse negative feedback, for only $1300.
Mr. LPC always sounds so laidback, like maybe he's stoned, or drunk, but even when things get heated, he never gets riled up, delivering his confusing threats as coolly as if he was ordering a pizza. And he's always ready to spit out another totally classic line, which with repeated listens will turn into things you and your friends end up quoting all the time: "I'm a webmaster, do you know what that means?!", "I'm on 9 now, I don't want to go to 10 on you!", "I was trained in fruitland", "Are you ready to peep my growth?". And the response from the folks on the other end of the line are usually just as hilarious if not more so than the stream of brain melting non sequiturs coming out of LPC's mouth. It's hard to explain exactly what makes LPC so much better than pretty much all other crank calls, give a listen to the sound samples, check out the reviews of the other releases. Part of it, as we may have mentioned before, is that it's anything but mean spirited, weirdly playful, poking fun, and even when the 'victim' starts swearing up a storm, offering to beat the shit out of LPC, dude remains cool, and definitely threatens back, but usually his threats are so confusing and WTF, that they often diffuse the tension, and they ended up having a somewhat friendly, and WAY weird conversation.
Number 7 is peppered with LPC "medleys" and "themes", which are basically, classic calls chopped up and collaged into bizarre free form soundscapes of demented zingers, irate freakouts, mumbling weirdness, all set to music, and doused in reverb and delay. Those tracks are almost as fun as the phone calls proper, and are definitely packed with some of LPC's best, and most awesomely insane lines EVER.
Also as a bonus, the final track is an awesome drum machined speed metal jam. On past records, the phone calls were split up between killer chunks of thrashing home recorded metal, but this one "Interlude Encore" might be the raddest yet. Totally shredding, chugging Slayer guitars, swooshing ambience, shredding wah wah leads, and furious frenzied drum machine double kick blast beats. We'd definitely be up for a whole record of jams like this.
Needless to say, Longmont Potion Castle rule, the music, the calls, the vibe, the mood, the concept, it's hilarious, baffling, funny as fuck, and so fun to listen to. Might even win over the anti crank call haters out there. Probably not though.
As always. WAY WAY WAY RECOMMENDED!!
MPEG Stream: "Negative Feedback"
MPEG Stream: "LPC 7 Medley 1"
MPEG Stream: "Spicy Legato"
MPEG Stream: "Interlude Encore"

LONGMONT POTION CASTLE Late-Eighties-Vein (Insides Music) cd 13.98
Can't say enough about Longmont Potion Castle. Perhaps the best, funniest, most bizarre series of crank calls ever. There's the always popular picking fights with strangers, but Mr. LPC does it so much better than most with his Steven Wright deadpan and his ridiculous non-sequiters. Constant references to deliveries of peacocks from Lithuania, offers of free manure, and an endless litany of nonsensical recommendations, bizarre suggestions, and problematic overtures, all delivered in that likeable guy-next-door deadpan. Always does raise the question WHY DON'T PEOPLE JUST HANG UP?!?! Lucky for us they don't. We also get a dose of Longmont's metal obsession with the occasional freaked out death metal interlude. This may be the last Longmont record too, as according to LPC himself, he went through all his tapes and collected everything he had left. So don't miss out. So dumb and funny and brilliant. Be sure and stick around at the end for a truly distrubing call, that goes from funny to really fucking sad in a matter of minutes, between LPC, a depressed suicidal goth teen and his overbearing fucked up dad. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Syop Playing Harmonica"
MPEG Stream: "Goat"
MPEG Stream: "Levi"
MPEG Stream: "Peacock"

LONGMONT POTION CASTLE Longbox Option Package (D.U.) 4 x cd-r, 3 x cd, 1 x DVD-r (7 discs!) 60.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit! This is the crank call mother lode. By now if you don't immediately start to giggle at the mere mention of Longmont Potion Castle, you are truly missing out. This one man prank call juggernaut has spent almost the last 20 years torturing unsuspecting folks, shop keepers, Radio Shack employees, old ladies, testosterone fueled jerks and pretty much everybody else with his totally surreal, unbelievably hilarious phone calls. This box set collects EVERY Longmont recording ever, including a whole disc of unreleased stuff, as well as the long out of print and barely available VHS tape on DVD for the first time! You think the calls are crazy, you should see the havoc this man can wreak on a call in talk show. This is absolutely essential for any one onto bizarre recordings, found sounds, prank calls, all around weirdness.
Included in this box set is LONGMONT POTION CASTLE (originally released in 1988), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE II (originally released in 1992), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE III (originally released in 1995), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 4 (originally released in 2002), LATE EIGHTIES-VEIN (originally released in 2003), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 5 (originally released in 2005), a bonus disc that includes a lot of the metal interludes that were cut when the original cassettes were transferred to cd, and the original LONGMONT POTION CASTLE VHS tape, now on DVD(-r) for the first time with tons of extra footage. Also includes a massive set of liner notes, with detailed track listings and the story behind each disc, as well as a custom LPC magnet. Each one personally signed by Mr. LPC himself!
Here's some of our past raves about all things LPC:
How can you not love a guy who gets off on torturing the clerks at radio shack and is obsessed with Tandy products?! A guy who spits out the most retarded and baffling products/names/etc: gugliata, voltor, leprechanjulius!! And on one disc, he continually harasses a foul mouthed cantakerous old man, but by the end of the disc, they become buddies, with the old man asking how the tape was going and LPC promising to send him a copy. FUCKING HEARTWARMING! How often do you get that on a crank call record?!!? Stupid and silly and once in a while totally inspired. This is still to this day constantly in the stereo on all of our road trips and so much Longmmont verbiage has become vernacular for us and all of our friends.
Longmont Potion Castle is the master of deadpan confusional telephone terror. Mr. Longmont no longer practices his art, having hung up his phone (hee hee... sorry) several years ago. But we can still listen and laugh. This stuff never stops being funny. The cool thing about LPC, is he's not an asshole, and he doesn't necessarily set out to piss people off, even though it's obviously inevitable. And when he does get in a tough guy "I'll kick your ass" sort of verbal sparring match, his choice of threats are so ridiculous and nonsensical, you find yourself almost embarassed for him, like the little tiny kid who is oblivious to his mortality and insists on standing up to the bully and always gets his ass whupped. Then add in his obsession with squid meat and an amazing litany of bizarre items / objects / names / services he invokes or offers or pretends to be looking for: Spencer Zebra, Aqualamb, Chowder Julius, Wovenloaf, Frickey Weaver, Chimp Giraffe Loop (making us laugh just typing those!). Wow! It really is amazingly funny. And bizarre. I
Easily the best, funniest, most bizarre series of crank calls ever. There's the always popular picking fights with strangers, but Mr. LPC does it so much better than most with his Steven Wright deadpan and his ridiculous non-sequiters. Constant references to deliveries of peacocks from Lithuania, offers of free manure, and an endless litany of nonsensical recommendations, bizarre suggestions, and problematic overtures, all delivered in that likeable guy-next-door deadpan. Always does raise the question WHY DON'T PEOPLE JUST HANG UP?!?! Lucky for us they don't. We also get a dose of Longmont's metal obsession with the occasional freaked out death metal interludes. So dumb and funny and brilliant. Be sure and keep your ears peeled for a truly distrubing call, that goes from funny to really fucking sad in a matter of minutes, between LPC, a depressed suicidal goth teen and his overbearing fucked up dad. Wow. these discs are full of magic moments like that, a few sad, lots of them just plain demented, but most of them so completely bust a gut hilarious!!
So buy this or we'll start talkin' whip, and may even bring a tennis racket toyaleyup!!!
MPEG Stream: "Syop Playing Harmonica"
MPEG Stream: "Goat"
MPEG Stream: "Levi"
MPEG Stream: "Peacock"
MPEG Stream: "UPS Freakout 1"
MPEG Stream: "Spencer Zebra"
MPEG Stream: "Aqualamb"
MPEG Stream: "Loud Tones"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO La Selva (V2 Archief) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Documenting the environmental sounds of a Costa Rican rainforest, Portuguese composer / ethnomusicologist Francisco Lopez has composed this continuous collage weaving the multitude of sounds from the forest: frogs, birds, rain, watrerfalls. The true feat of this album is the liner notes which features a lengthy taxonomy of the almost all of the species causing these sounds (i.e. at 29'09" there's the croak of Debdrobates pumulio - the Strawberry Dart-poison frog).

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO & XABIER ERKIZIA Elektra Bidasoa (Ferns) cd 15.98
So, Andee just asked the perennially valid question, when it comes to Lopez recordings at least, after coming up to the front of the shop and seeing this new cd on the counter, yet hearing 'nothing' coming from the speakers: "Are you actually listening to this right now?" With a sizable portion of Lopez' nearly 300 compositions being sub-audible at best, it is in fact not always a bad idea to pose that question. It should be stated that the above query was made between tracks one and two, when Lopez was enjoying some downtime; but aside from this brief moment, Lopez is much more forthright in presenting a goodly amount of immersive sound.
For Elektra Bidasoa, he and Xabier Erkizia (better known as half of the AQ-endorsed noise-rock outfit Billy Bao!) slogged down the Bidasoa River in Spain, making recordings from the various hydroelectric plants located on that waterway. Earlier in 2011, the two presented an installation of their findings intermeshing the two sets of recordings; but here, their findings are presented in parallel. While both Lopez and Erkizia were drawing from the same source material - industrial hum, hiss, drone, and klank - they arrive at considerably different compositions. For Lopez, the whorl of the turbine, the hum of the circuit board, and the hiss of the cooling unit all become sustained elements in a gradually evolving composition of dehumanized activity. Such pneumatic and automated systems can function rightly on their own, seemingly independent of the human hand; and Lopez speaks to the engineered functionality as an aestheticized language - a poetry of the sterile and antiseptic.
Erkizia is far more in awe of those machines than Lopez', presenting his recordings with considerable dynamic force. Along with the machined drones that Lopez uses, Erkizia occasionally turns his microphones to the water which drives those dams, at times sloshing at the riverbank and at times roaring through the massive concrete sluices that guide the water through the turbines themselves. This contrast from the bursts of activity from either source, poses a threat of electrocution. Coupled with the intense explosions that Erkizia uses in his concrete-styled composition, this work can be downright scary at times.
MPEG Stream: FRANCISCO LOPEZ "Untitled 226"
MPEG Stream: XABIER ERKIZIA "Bidasoa, Presak"

LUCAS & FRIENDS Discover A World Of Sounds (Vinyl Commmunications) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pea Hicks from San Diego, California has a habit... scrounging around thirft stores for recordable 78s and crappy TDK tapes filled with nearly pornographic love letters, 'foul-mouthed' kids whose definition of obscenity is the word 'jerk', and attempts to get baby to recite the alphabet. Mr. Hicks has built a hilarious collage of all of these found recordings, occasionally augmenting them with his arsenal of Optigon keyboards (which are the focal point of his other outfit, Optigonally Yours, a duo with Heavy Vegetable's Rob Crow).
Hearing this makes us long for those tapes we made when we were young... not so much for nostalgia, more in fear that our embarrassing tapes will find their way to a thrift store, and eventually onto your stereo.

MARCLAY, CHRISTIAN Guitar Drag (Neon Gallery) lp 27.00
We have a customer in Japan who HATES Keiji Haino, and delights in sending us emails detailing just how much he loathes the man and his music. Andee of course delights in torturing Allan, an admitted Keiji mega-fan, with these very same missives. Having spied Haino shopping in a record store, our customer remarked "Even the way he looks at cds sucks", and once he emailed that he could make a Keiji Haino record simply by sticking an electric guitar and an amp in the trunk of his car and driving around on bumpy Japanese roads. Which brings us to Guitar Drag, the soundtrack to a video installation in which Christian Marclay, took an electric guitar, plugged it in, tied it to the back of a truck, and drove around dragging the guitar behind him and recording the results. Visually it's pretty amazing. And a clever statement on music and art, as are all of Marclay's pieces. But the sound yields something surprisingly listenable. Super lo-fi, a swirling, clanging crash and crunch of hum and twang and rumble and roar, a noisy mess, perhaps, but surprisingly dynamic, with random melodies and some remarkable sounds surfacing from the murky stringed chaos. Actually, if one was to listen to this not knowing it was some art prank, one would most certainly be forgiven for thinking this was in fact some totally abstract free rock psychedelic freakout, the Dead C, or some mysterious Matthew Bower project, or even -that- above mentioned nonexistent Haino guitar-in-the-trunk record we wish would come out. Not sure what it says about those bands when dragging a guitar behind your car produces the same sound, but who cares?! Art nerds already need this, but now all you free noise psychedelic freaks can feel all 'arty' when you throw this on right between Fushitsusha's Live 2 and the Dead C's Trapdoor Fucking Exit!
Cool sleeve image, a video still of the dragged guitar, and pressed on super swank cloudy clear vinyl.

MCGINTY, KATHY s/t (Hamburger Records) cd 11.98
BACK IN STOCK! If you missed out on this all-time AQ "comedy" fave before, now's your chance... here's what we said about it when it was first reissued on cd back in 2001, and we made it Record Of The Week:
FINALLY! We've been waiting ages for this to get reissued and the wait is now over! Easily one of the funniest, weirdest, most fucked up records ever. As we're writing this, everyone else here is laughing hysterically while this plays in the store. In fact, we're having trouble concentrating or even typing with this playing. It is so goddamn funny. But also kind of creepy and totally bizarre. But mostly very very funny! Originally released as a cd-r, later bootlegged by an unscrupulous LA record label, Kathy McGinty is now available as a professionally pressed cd (no longer a cd-r) with new liner notes and bonus material not included on the original cd-r release!! Here's what we had to say about the original:
You ever have that problem where you're in an internet sex chat room, and you make a date with some pervy girl for a phone sex session, and then when you call her up it's actually some jerk with a sampler loaded with a sexy female voice telling you things like "Taco Bell is sooo good?" Well if you did, chances are you're one of the crank call victims on this extremely funny and fucked up cd. We guarantee, if you hear this stuff you'll die laughing (unless you're a total prude, of course). It's really unbelievable how pathetic the guys are who attempt to carry on a phone sex chat with "Kathy McGinty", who is pretty obviously a recorded voice triggered by someone's sampler. They don't seem to mind that she sounds like she's talking to them over a CB radio, or that most of what she says is absurd and nonsensical, like a random sound collage from a porno movie. Her Taco bell comment just gets a moan of agreement from the hapless caller.
A few of the callers figure it out, and then it gets even more pathetic as they continue to masturbate, being such geeks that they're turned on by the technical details of the joke (one guy asks, excitedly, about if the sampler is triggered by keyboard or mouse). But most of the guys are so clueless and horny that they're completely unfazed by Kathy's bizarre comments ("I think you might be racist", "I want to have your retarded babies", "I've got a pickle in my ass", "You know I'm only 12?", "I sell used cars", "Check out my hairy balls", "I'm all fucked up from huffing Scotch Guard", "I think I might be having a miscarriage") and limited vocabulary (she says "Yesssss!" the same way every time), or her deafeningly noisy, Merzbow-level obviously-looped screams of orgasmic ecstasy. We could go on, but we don't want to reveal too much. Just get this, it's the best crank call disc we've heard in a long time. You'll be playing it for everyone you know, except maybe your mom. Absurdly funny.
MPEG Stream: "Very Large Hands"
MPEG Stream: "OK, This Is A Recording"
MPEG Stream: "This Is Damien"
MPEG Stream: "I Look Like A Cock"
MPEG Stream: "How Many Fingers?"

MCGINTY, KATHY s/t (Hamburger Records) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. REAL CD VERSION W/ BONUS TRACKS COMING SOON, HOWEVER!!
You ever have that problem where you're in an internet sex chat room, and you make a date with some pervy girl for a phone sex session, and then when you call her up it's actually some jerk with a sampler loaded with a sexy female voice telling you things like "Taco Bell is sooo good?" Well if you did, chances are you're one of the crank call victims on this extremely funny and fucked up cd-r. We guarantee, if you hear this stuff you'll die laughing (unless you're a total prude, of course). It's really unbelievable how pathetic the guys are who attempt to carry on a phone sex chat with "Kathy McGinty", who is pretty obviously a recorded voice triggered by someone's Yamaha SU10 sampler. They don't seem to mind that she sounds like she's talking to them over a CB radio, or that most of what she says is absurd and nonsensical, like a random sound collage from a porno movie. Her Taco bell comment just gets a moan of agreement from the hapless caller.
A few of the callers figure it out, and then it gets even more pathetic as they continue to masturbate, being such geeks that they're turned on by the technical details of the joke (one guy asks, excitedly, about if the sampler is triggered by keyboard or mouse). But most of the guys are so clueless and horny that they're completely unfazed by Kathy's bizarre comments ("I think you might be racist", "I want to have your retarded babies", "I've got a pickle in my ass") and limited vocabulary (she says "Yesssss!" the same way every time), or her deafeningly noisy, Merzbow-level obviously-looped screams of orgasmic ecstasy. We could go on, but we don't want to reveal too much. Just get this, it's the best crank call disc we've heard in a long time. You'll be playing it for everyone you know, except maybe your mom. Absurdly funny.
RealAudio clip: "I'm Jamming It In Deep, Baby"
RealAudio clip: "I'm Not A Child Molestor, But I'll Fuck You"

MCGREEVY, STEPHEN P. Auroral Chorus II: The Music of the Magnetosphere (SPM) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock! Last copies!
It's was a happy day at Aquarius when we heard about this release! American radio hobbyist Stephen P. McGreevy has dedicated himself to the documentation of earth's magnetosphere by using home built VLF radio receivers (whose schematics are readily available from McGreevy's website).
On Auroral Chorus II -- his second release after the acclaimed but sadly out of print Electric Enigma double cd set for Conet Project label Irdial -- McGreevy turns his charmingly enthused attention to the VLF phenomenon associated with the Aurora Borealis (aka the Northern Lights). Along with low buzzing hisses and crackles (not unlike those heard on records by hard disc editors like Fennesz and Pimmon), McGreevy's recievers have also picked up some beautiful choruses in which the magnetosphere resonates in beautiful wavering tones and whistling risers.
Furthermore, McGreevy shows off his technical savvy with some stereo recordings -- with two VLF receivers with antennae along the north / south axis and along the east / west axis!
As far as found sounds, McGreevy's VLF recordings are some of the more alien, yet most beautiful that we've ever encountered. So, if you missed "Electric Enigma" you now again have the chance to investigate these amazing sounds courtesy of McGreevy's fascinating obsession.
MPEG Stream: "track 7"
MPEG Stream: "track 10"

MCGREEVY, STEPHEN P. Electric Enigma (Irdial) 2cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brought us the truly disturbing Conet Project comes Stephen P. McGreevy's VLF recordings. With a knowledge of basic radio telescopics, a few choice geographical / atmospheric anomalies, and a good ear, McGreevy records the earth's electromagnetic signature generated through such phenomenon as the Alaskan Northern Lights. Delicate whistles streak over loud crackles, that bring to mind Id Battery's fascination with recorded fire, or John Duncan's shortwave radio experiments. Word of caution, one of our faithful customers complained that this created rather deleterious psychosomatic effects.

MCGREGOR, DION Dion McGregor Dreams Again (Tzadik) cd 16.98
How long would last if your roommate screamed his dreams out loud every night? Would you have the foresight to capture these disturbances on tape? Lucky for us back in the 1960's Dion McGregor's roommate stuck it out long enough to provide us with this aural document of one man's nocturnal pain and pleasure. Dion's dreams range from queeny dress up parties to drooling descriptions of large breasted women and cunnilingus contests. Equally disturbing as it is riveting.

MCGREGOR, DION The Further Somniloquies Of... (Torpor Vigil Industries) cd 15.98
Everybody's favorite sleeptalker is back and we're really fucking excited! Dreams Again, the previous release on Tzadik, is one of our most loved and consistently selling "spoken word" CDs, and with reason. Most of us who talk in our sleep tend to say maybe a couple words or phrases at best, often mumbled so quietly that it's hard to even catch the words they're saying -- if you even happen to be awake and close enough to hear it. Well imagine someone that regularly, throughout his entire life, recited entire dreams in a clear voice. And imagine every one of those dreams being the most ridiculous and surreal dreams imaginable. That's Dion McGregor. The story goes that in 1961 Dion McGregor -- a born again freeloader, chronic couch-surfer and quasi-successful song writer -- was discovered to be a verbose sleeptalker by the friend whose house he was currently crashing at. The friend, a director of porn films, attempted to jot down the dreams, but McGregor's speech was just too fast. With some mild coercion (free rent must have been involved) a mutual friend and song writer, Michael Barr, agreed to allow McGregor to sleep at his apartment in return for being allowed to record his dreams. Barr set up a microphone at the head of Dion's bed and for seven years recorded everything he could. Apparently Dion's vocalizations tended to begin just before waking in the morning, so there was a bit of predictability they could count on. Playing the tapes to the right people at the right time eventually resulted in an LP released on Decca in 1964 entitled the Dream World of Dion McGregor (and in 1999 Tzadik released a cd of additional material also recorded by Barr). While there must be enough tapes of McGregor's ramblings to cover several more volumes (Barr claims to have recorded upwards of 500 dreams), we'll have to settle for these 80 more minutes for the time being. Listening to these bizarre tales it's hard to believe that these are coming from a man who's genuinely asleep. The way McGregor recites them sounds almost conversational, describing the events he's undergoing. At the same time Mcgregor is both the director of his dreams: telling us to all get ready for the scavenger hunt (reciting off a myriad of strange objects that must be located), but also a participant: confessing to us that he'll never be able to locate said objects in such short time. And, it must be added, he almost invariably ends each transmission with horrified screaming. No matter how mild or whimsical a dream may be when it starts, it always seems to end in either tragedy or just plain shrieking madness. But the theory that McGregor made up and performed these monologues, fully conscious, is even harder to imagine. He would have had to have been quite a writer and a performer to achieve such results, and to allow it to remain archived in obscuity for eternity. No matter, even if these were faked they still add up to an impressive collection of the most fucked up, hilarious and down right amazing monologues this side of Kenneth Patchen. An absolute must for all lovers of the more disturbing aspects of the human psyche!
MPEG Stream: "The Scavenger Hunt"
MPEG Stream: "It's All Over Evelyn"

MEANING OF LIFE, THE s/t (Narbin Deeber) cd-r 9.98
"The first thing is that time travel has been going on forever." The second thing is that, at Aquarius, this cd-r has been causing a bit of consternation as no one seems to know why they should be the one assigned to write about "the meaning of life". Yeah, real funny. What we DO know, according to what is written on the back cover, is that the recording captured here comes from a cassette mysteriously labeled "The Meaning of Life" which was found lying on a roadside and eventually passed along to the producer of this disc. The recording is of a very agitated man apparently talking on the phone. Whether he's actually talking on the phone is anyone's guess. He repeatedly gets so angry with whoever is on the other end that he works himself into a frenzy screaming "Shut UP!!!" repeatedly, his voice breaking up from his strained frustration. What is clear about this man is that he's not playing with a full deck of cards. None the less, the monologue is at once disturbing and entertaining. To top it off the recording is made not using an answering machine or anything else which might actually pick up whoever would be on the other end of the conversation, but with a microphone placed in the room with the caller. The added benefit from this method is that we're treated to the rumbling ambiance of a thunder storm. The equipment used is not the best, so at times it's hard to tell whether that is indeed a thunderstorm in the background or someone banging on a giant dumpster. Whatever the sound is, it gets so loud at times that it drowns out the man's ranting. So what is he talking about? Well, that's a fair question. However, it's hard enough to follow a spoken word disc in the store as it is, dealing with all of our daily tasks, but when the monologue is that of a raving lunatic, it's even more challenging. There are time traveling Android/Angels, including a Christ Android that will descend to the earth from the 12th planet. Plus there's also a great deal here about mind control, Stalin, and Donna Summer (ie: the devil). Our narrator, who has a superior knowledge of physics, puts it best perhaps when he tells his silent friend that he knows so much shit that if he "were to say it all at once to anybody they'd go fucking stark raving crazy at light speed." One theory is that the person on the other end of the line is actually the narrator himself in the past. The disc ends, oddly enough, with some random music snatches attributed to Donna Summer and then some short audio samples from the rant tagged on at the very end so that -- I suppose -- you can pull off your own Kathy McGinty or Arnold Schwarzenegger style prank calls.
"If I say the wrong thing over the phone I get a horrible Huey attack"
MPEG Stream: "CPU's of the 25th Century"
MPEG Stream: "12th Planet"

METALLICA DRUMMER (Neverending Entertainment) video 5.98
Holy smokes! Final copies in existence! Only available here! Now lower priced!
It's the infamous and highly sought Metallica Drummer video which has been sadly out of print for five years much to the chagrin of those whose lives were severely altered by viewing the tape. Those individuals will surely not want to miss out this time around. In fact, for those of you who were fortunate enough to nab a copy the first time around, it's undoubtably been worn thin from repeat plays. I know mine has. Time for a fresh copy! For those who have yet to experience Metallica Drummer... hoooo boy, brace yourself!
Released once again by Neverending Entertainment aka Cup and her I Am Spoonbender bandmate Dustin. Apart from buying it directly from them at their shows, AQ is pleased as punch to be the *only* other place to get it.
Here's what we said the first time around...
You have certainly spent many idle moments staring at the wall dreaming of stardom. You've spent inspired Sunday afternoons dancing on your bed, singing your favorite song to the illusion of thousands of adoring, screaming fans below. But have you been caught?
Metallica Drummer, as he has come to be known, set-up a video camera in his livingroom, put on some of his favorite Metallica songs and gave an air-drumming performance with no equal. This is truly one of the funniest things that I have ever seen. The humor lies not only in laughing at this embarrassing moment, but in the utter fascination with someone who is so obsessed with Lars Ulrich that he is able to replicate his drumming with absolute accuracy. I am certain that he sold his soul at the crossroads to acquire these unparallelled air-drum skills. An astonishing personal document. "He's talented! He's obsessed! He's Canadian! He's... Metallica Drummer!"
Ultra limited and sure to go fast, and once they're gone, they're gone! So don't snooze and lose again!

MIESKUORO HUUTAJAT 10th Anniversary Concert (Bad Vugum) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the liner notes: "Ten and a half years ago, a few men in Oulu (Finland) were bothered by a thought: what would it be like to assemble a maximal number of men into a regular formation and dress them in dark suits, black rubber ties (made of used inner tubes), white shirts, and make them furiously shout some patriotic texts sacred to Finns. The men didn't have any further starting point: neither musical frustrations, a political programme, an aesthetic trend, nor opinions concerning postmodenism in arctic areas. But already the first choir rehersal proved that a shouting men's choir would have expressive power in all these senses."
Allow me to reiterate, 80 Finnish men in black suits and rubber ties barking rhythmic reinterpretations of patriotic Finnish songs (they also shout the 'Star Spangled Banner'!!!). One of AQ's favorite documents of the absurd.

MIESKUORO HUUTAJAT H.V.Y.A. (Bad Vugum) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Quite simply one of the most fucked things that has passed through the doors of AQ! A choir of 40 men who do not sing, rather they shout various Finnish anthems, children's ditties, and patriotic songs. As you can accertain, these renditions are completely devoid of melody but have an outstanding sensibility when it comes to re-interpreting the rhythmic elements of the original songs. The CD features all of the tracks from their Finnish major label single of variations on the national anthems from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, U.S.A., and Germany (which is down right awesome). Gratefully both formats clock in well under 15 minutes, any more would be sadistic.

MIZUTANI, KIYOSHI Scenery Of The Border: Environments And Folklore Of The Tanzawa Mountains (And / OAR) 2cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A few years back, Kiyoshi Mizutani ventured into the Tanzawa mountain range located to the southwest of Tokyo in order to document the sounds of that very isolated region. In the liner notes to this album, Mizutani explains that this region enjoys a complex history with centuries worth of military endeavors and legends including one tragedy which Mizutani alludes to about "the losing army's princess." Needless to say, the mountains may have been of strategic importance to any number of rival factions; but by now, their remoteness and desolation harbors only a small population. He focuses his attention upon three aspects of those mountains: the natural (which is the dominant voice of the Tanzawan environment), the ceremonial folklore of the people, and the residual noise of the man-made. Mizutani's love of bird sounds was evident on one of his early sound works simply entitled Bird Songs; and the spirited chatter of many a bird dots Mizutani's field recordings. Crickets, cicadas, and plenty of insect choruses also feature into Scenery Of The Border, as does a broad range of watery recordings from quiet drips from a misty rain to the immersive white noise of waterfalls. The few recordings that feature a human presence are of restrained Shinto and Buddhist ceremonies, which Mizutani mentions have rarely been heard outside of that region. It's these ritualistic stompings and hushed bits of chanting that stand amongst the highlights of this incredible field recording document.
MPEG Stream: "Hail At Mt. Tanzawa"
MPEG Stream: "Million Times Invocation Of Yozuku"
MPEG Stream: "Blue And White Flycatcher At Shiomizu Pass"

MIZUTANI, KYOSHI Bird Songs (Ground Fault ) cd 11.98
During the '80s, Kyoshi Mizutani was a member of Merzbow with Masami Akita - the man who's name is often synonymous with Merzbow, in spite of the many individuals who have helped with his ongoing Merzbow project. For this album, Mizutani presents six different and mostly untreated field recordings with tenuous connections to bird songs. The first track features the most overt manipulation of the field recorings with Mizutani sampling and modulating the tweeting song of an Indian Tree Pipit. Mizutani's raw recordings also feature the strange call of a Ground Thrush in the midnight rain and the squawking of several ducks as the airplanes fly overhead their bird sanctuary. There's also a track in which Mizutani records a duet between himself spartanly playing a thumbpiano and the calls of a number of birds in the forest. While he's captured some nice sounds, his microphone is not quite as finely tuned as the ones used by Bernie Krause or Chris Watson.

MNORTHAM :coyot: (Erewhon) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Aeolian harps are relatively simple devices made from of a couple planks of wood and a taut wire, which are placed in relation to a wind source to transform the speed, force, and directionality of the air itself into an extended drone. David Kenny's Aeolian String Ensemble and Douglas Quin's Antarctica recordings (using ice instead of wood and wire) are previous examples we've mentioned of the amazing sounds that an aeolian harp can generate. Portland sound artist Mnortham received a commission to install a series of aeolian harps in an abandoned bunker found on an island off the coast of Finland. (Cool!) ":coyot:" is a collection of the transmuted sounds from the recordings that Mnortham made within that bunker, as well as from various field recordings culled from the exploration of the island's landscape. While the lengthy essay contributed by Giancarlo Toniutti offers a complex thesis on the relation of these recordings to the sky / wind / air mythologies of a number of ancient Nordic races, Mnortham's recordings succeed through their beautifully droning simplicity, much like Francisco Lopez or Jonathan Coleclough.
RealAudio clip: "Effects On Atmospheric Pressure On Air-Born Particles"

MODULO 1000 Nao Fale Com Paredes (World In Sound) cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
All right! It's about time this legendary slice of South American psych got a not-inordinately-expensive cd reissue we could stock. We've been into this band/album ever since a REALLY expensive but beautiful (and now long-gone) vinyl reissue came out on Shadoks some years ago. Now World In Sound makes it available on cd in a fancy thick triple-fold sleeve that preserves the great psychedelic gatefold art from the original LP -- art that Acid Mothers Temple would die for! There's a 14-page booklet with notes and photos as well. This is definitely one for all you '70s heavy psych freaks! Super fuzz wah guitar and organ jamming stoner psych-prog from Brazil, circa 1970. Nine tracks packed with sinewy jams, trippy fx, weighty grooves... definitely appealing to the same head-space as contemporaries like Iron Butterfly, Dug Dug's, Captain Beyond, Speed Glue & Shinki, Hendrix, Flower Travellin' Band, etc. And we're pretty certain that current South American stoner rock faves Los Natas must be into this album too... Also, you may in fact have heard one track from this before, on the ever-recommended Love, Peace & Poetry: Latin American Psychedelic Music comp also on Shadoks, but that track only hints at how cool this album is. (They also have a track on the LP&P Brazilian volume too.)
Here's a quote from one of the band members, the organist, that ought to give some flavor of what they were all about: "The music of Modulo 1000 had its own appeal to an audience that wanted a heavy, raw, experimental, psychedelic sound. Our kind of music did not make it to the radio stations. It was too wild. The distribution of the record was done in a very limited way. The record label directors, which probably didn't understand or even didn't like our music, did zero promotion for the LP." Thus, one darn heavy, weird, and utterly rare record!
This reish also includes seven bonus tracks (from where/when is left unexplained) some of which are freaky enough to fit with the actual record itelf, but just aren't as heavy -- more Latin groovy.
MPEG Stream: "Nao Fale Com Paredes"
MPEG Stream: "Salve-Se Quem Pudea"

MODULO 1000 Nao Fale Com Paredes (Cherry Red Phonograph) lp 28.00
All right! The cd reissue of this legendary slice of South American psych has been out of print for some time, and while it's also been reissued on vinyl before, that was long ago and much more expensive, so we're happy to have this back, reissued once again on wax.
This is definitely one for all you '70s heavy psych freaks! Super fuzz wah guitar and organ jamming stoner psych-prog from Brazil, circa 1970. Nine tracks packed with sinewy jams, trippy fx, weighty grooves... definitely appealing to the same head-space as contemporaries like Iron Butterfly, Dug Dug's, Captain Beyond, Speed Glue & Shinki, Hendrix, Flower Travellin' Band, etc. And we're pretty certain that current South American stoner rock faves Los Natas must be into this album too... Also, you may in fact have heard one track from this before, on Shadok's ever-recommended Love, Peace & Poetry: Latin American Psychedelic Music comp, but that track only hints at how cool this album is. (They also have a track on the LP&P Brazilian volume too.)
Here's a quote from one of the band members, the organist, that ought to give some flavor of what they were all about: "The music of Modulo 1000 had its own appeal to an audience that wanted a heavy, raw, experimental, psychedelic sound. Our kind of music did not make it to the radio stations. It was too wild. The distribution of the record was done in a very limited way. The record label directors, which probably didn't understand or even didn't like our music, did zero promotion for the LP." Thus, one darn heavy, weird, and utterly rare record!
MPEG Stream: "Nao Fale Com Paredes"
MPEG Stream: "Salve-Se Quem Pudea"

MUSEE MECANIQUE Presents The Zelinsky Collection (Musee Mechanique) dvd 16.98
Oh boy! A DVD filmed at San Francisco's famed Musee Mechanique, that fantastic collection of turn of the century penny arcade machines!! Cool. We figure that many of our customers who've bought the cds of music from the Musee that we sell (three volumes so far, you'll find 'em elsewhere on our site) haven't actually had the chance to visit the place themselves, so this is perfect. And if you HAVE been to the Musee -- especially the old Cliff House location -- you'll want this for the memories. And it'll make you want to head on down there soon enough again to visit in person, so it's double the nostagia trip (for the early 1900's, and for the last time you were there).
For those who haven't even heard of the place, basically the Musee Mechanique, now located on Pier 45 down at Fisherman's Wharf, is filled with coin-operated mechanical amusements ranging from music boxes and player-piano type contraptions (several with an orchestra's worth of sounds) to various games of skill and chance to quaint "peep shows" to fortune tellers to animated dioramas (what are called "working models") to Musee mascot Laughing Sal... all are to be found on this DVD, filmed in action, as collector/curator Edward Zelinsky takes viewers on a guided tour of the Musee's many attractions, even stopping to try his hand at the "Love Tester". Sometimes he talks about when/where/how he ended up acquiring the machine he's showing off, but just as often he just drops the quarter in and gives a "hey, wow, gee whiz" reaction just like a kid.
The documentary has its cheesy (but charming) moments -- someone gets carried away with video effects a few times, for instance -- but we're mighty pleased with it overall. It's very cool to get a glimpse at the inner workings of both the Musee and its machines. Maybe our favorite thing about this DVD is the way the camera really gets up close and personal with the "working models", taking the viewer into the scene (fire house, farm, graveyard, and our favorite, the opium den!!) in a way that you can't really experience even in person. Especially with that creepy opium den diorama, we were reminded of a Brothers Quay film or Tool video...
Ed Zelinsky passed away in 2004 (his tour was filmed when the Musee was still at the Cliff house) but his collection is in the capable hands of his son Daniel, who had been running the Musee and fixing the machines for many years already, and appears in several of the "extras" included. Total running time 68:45.

MUSEE MECANIQUE The Zelinsky Collection Volume 1 (Mechanical Museum) cd 14.98
Long, long ago we stocked an LP of recordings from San Francisco's own Cliff House-based Musee Mechanique. Sadly this album went out of print a few years back, leaving many sad customers who'd found out about it too late. Well weep no longer, as AQ now has an all new disc (the first of several, we're told) of recordings made of the machines at the museum.
The Musee Mechanique, for those who've never been, is a hands-on museum of early penny arcade machines (some over a century old) kept in their original working order for the public's enjoyment by the determined work of curator Edward Galland Zelinsky. Every time we have visitors from out of town, we take' em here. Stereoscopic peep shows, moralising fortune tellers, old baseball game machines, nickelodeons, prisoner art made out of toothpicks, music boxes, player pianos, "test your strength" challenges, animated dioramas, and more are constantly kept in tune -- it's both historic and entertaining. (Including everyone's favorite -- Laughing Sal, a larger than life size doll who just laughs and laughs and laughs. Wonderful.) The 27 tracks found here are all new recordings of the various machines (mostly player pianos playing assorted rags), captured after museum hours, so it's free of unwanted tourist chatter (although they nicely left the sounds of the coins falling into the slot as lead ins to each track.)
RealAudio clip: "Cancione"
RealAudio clip: "Laughing Sal"
RealAudio clip: "Roses From The South"